CSBG Archive

A Year of Cool Comics – Day 258

Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here‘s the archive of the comics posted so far!

The concept of the comic is simple, although seemingly a bit complex – a man named Robert Mallory is building a tidal power station that can harness the power of deep sea currents. This idea is a very valuable one and some bad guys want it from Mallory, so they kidnap his son. Mallory was in the midst of offering a deal to Black Panther to use some vibranium in the powering of the station when Mallory received the news. Panther, being a good guy and all, agrees to help Mallory rescue his son. Meanwhile, the Sub-Mariner heard the news about Mallory’s station and he wants to let Mallory know that messing with the oceans is a bad idea. Daredevil sees Namor pouting about he is going to teach Mallory a lesson, and, being a good guy, Daredevil can’t help but get involved protecting Mallory.

So Namor wants to hurt Mallory, Daredevil wants to protect Mallory while Black Panther is helping Mallory against some other bad guys who kidnapped Mallory’s kid.

Got that?

Okay, now feast your eyes on some amazing pages from the late, great George Tuska…

Later, when the bad guys capture Black Panther…

Still later, when Panther escapes and he and DD team-up…

I won’t spoil what happens next (although it involves a brand-new super-villain and a fight between allies), but you should be able to pick this puppy up fairly cheap on the back issue market. There’s a copy on eBay up for bid that’s currently just a buck with less than 11 hours left to go! Go get it!

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13 Comments

Omar Karindu

I always thought this Annual was a great example of where many “relevant” Bronze Age comics fail.

You have a serviceable ecological plotline going, and then in the last ten pages, someone remembers they need a supervillain to blame everything on. Hence the gangster in the story gets super-mental powers in an explosion that conveniently wear off forever after those ten pages, because that way the comic can resolve its plot by having a hero beat up a costumed supervillain.

Brian Cronin

Omar Karindu

Also, an oddity: because of the Daredevil title’s poor sales this was the last annual it got for over a decade. When Marvel did another DD annual, it;d been so long that they accidentally reused this issue’s number. That’s why you often see DD Annual #4A and 4B in listings.

Or maybe someone decided that this Annual was so lousy that it never happened…never happened…never happ….

Cass

There’s a copy on eBay up for bid that’s currently just a buck with less than 11 hours left to go! Go get it!

Geez, Brian, you can try to be a little more subtle about it. I’ve known for some time that you’ve been using Year of Cool Comics to plug books you were selling on eBay, but now you’re directly advertising on the site?! Sheesh, some guys will do anything for a buck.

Brian Cronin

But of course I would have to make sure to pretend that it isn’t me, though. “There is this eBay guy, cronb01, who is offering up a bunch of good stuff! IT’s NOT ME! IGNORE THE NAME BEING THE SAME AS MY E-MAIL ADDRESS!”

Zombie X

Mary Warner

I had no idea radioactively-labeled money could trigger his radar sense. That would have to be very weakly radioactive for the DAs office to hand it out to criminals, I would think. (Don’t want to contaminate all of Manhattan.)

So T’Challa knew Matt’s identity way back then? Was he the first hero who knew it (other than the Widow, obviously)?

So T’Challa knew Matt’s identity way back then? Was he the first hero who knew it (other than the Widow, obviously)?

I think Black Panther found out before Black Widow did, way back in DD#52. He may indeed have been the first. Before that Spider-Man pretty much figured it out (DD#24), then got thrown off the scent when Matt invented a fake brother, Mike Murdock, as a more obvious candidate to secretly be DD. Eventually, of course, Matt’s identity became one of the worst-kept secrets in comics.

Iron Maiden

The Jack Kirby Collector issue #54 has a Jack Kirby/George Tuska splash page from Captain America #112 featuring the scene with Sub-Mariner coming across Steve Rogers encased in ice. There’s also a brief interview with Tuska done shortly before his death. I didn’t know he and Stan used to hit the links together.

Tuska is awesome. I’ve always loved his work.
And I always found the whole “cheap hood becomes super-mental-powered supervillain in arbitrary accident (Mind-Master! Complete with instant costume! Including pointy things on mask, gloves, and boots!) then turns back and loses powers just at the right time” thing more funny than annoying.
(Plus, Mind-Master must be a handy answer for “shortest duration existence for a supervillain” trivia quizzes…)